Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 27th November)

Best Days: Keen surfers Surf Coast magnets tomorrow morning and beaches to the east early Friday, protected spots early Monday, early Tuesday and possibly early Wednesday

Recap

Poor conditions across all locations yesterday with strengthening onshore winds and a building windswell, much cleaner today but smaller, mixed in with an inconsistent SW groundswell. The Surf Coast magnets were 2ft+, with bumpy 3-4ft waves to the east for desperate surfers.

This week and weekend (Nov 28 – Dec 1)

The outlook over the coming days isn't great, but you'll be able to find an OK (if you're desperate) wave across both coasts working the winds.

Tomorrow will be clean on the Surf Coast through the morning with a NW offshore, but the swell will be small and back to 2ft, while a shallow S/SE change is due early afternoon.

The mid-period SW swell due later in the day has been brought forward a little, with the low linked to it currently weakening south-west of us, but it will continue to generate a weaker W/SW fetch through our swell window into this evening.

We should see the swell arrive late morning tomorrow and building to 3ft on the Surf Coast into the afternoon, 4-5ft+ to the east, peaking overnight and easing slowly Friday. Easing sets from 3ft and 4-5ft+ respectively are due and an early morning E/SE breeze should open up a few options east of Melbourne, before shifting to the S/SE mid-late morning.

Saturday looks poor for both regions with an easing mid-period swell and moderate to fresh S/SW breeze.

We then look towards our cold blast of onshore winds and snow from Sunday into mid-next week, with a strong node of the Long Wave Trough currently moving in from the west. This node is expected to stall just east of us into the weekend and early next week, slowly weakening later week.

This will project a series of polar fronts up and into us from Sunday through at least mid-week if not later next week.

They'll be of various strength and projected between our south-western and southern swell windows, producing moderate to large pulses of SW-S/SW swell from Monday through Friday.

The first swell is expected to build Monday, produced by an initial broad and strong polar front projecting from the polar shelf Saturday, south of WA, up and into South Australia on Sunday.

It'll be initially well aimed and then move out of our swell window, resulting in a moderate sized mid-period SW swell. As this swell builds, a broad and elongated but weaker polar front will project strong S/SW winds up and into us, generating an additional S/SW swell to the mix.

Size wise building surf from the 3ft range on the Surf Coast and 4-5ft+ to the east is expected Monday, building to 4-5ft and 6ft to occasionally 8ft later in the day respectively. Winds will be W/NW early Monday, shifting W/SW mid-morning and strengthening, limiting surfing options.

A secondary front projecting up and towards us Tuesday should steer winds back to the W/NW early Tuesday with similar amounts of swell to later Monday. Winds will shift strong W/SW again from mid-morning with an additional increase in size through the afternoon, holding Wednesday. Winds look an issue and W/SW-SW, but we'll have a closer look at this on Friday.